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06 Oct 2020
3 Min Read
Yusef Kifah (Guest Contributor)
As exciting as starting your own brand can be, hurdles have to be leapt in order to make your brand a functioning reality. This is more apparent especially when starting your own brand entirely by yourself, as the only person you will, and can solely rely on, is yourself. When establishing Yusef Kifah as a brand, this was the case for me as I faced several challenges along the way.
Forming your brand identity is one of the main challenges you’ll face when starting your brand. Mainly, your brand has to be unique amongst others, to stand out in the pool of other similar products.
In order to form a solid brand identity, discovering the true passion behind starting your brand plays a major role to overcome this challenge.
For example, you can explore your skills, experiences and passion to find your identity. This was the case when I restructured my artist persona in 2019, returning to my true passion of Hard Trance music which I initially started back in 2012, but diverted momentarily in 2017 to more commercial electronic music genres.
Besides that, identifying your brand’s placement within the industry is also a challenging factor when starting your own brand. It’s crucial to know where your brand potentially stands in your respective industry because then you'll be able to search for the right opportunities that can push your brand further.
For example, knowing what your brand can contribute to the public will determine how your brand may be perceived and acknowledged.
This can be done by connecting with like-minded people, gathering insight on the industry your brand may potentially stand. I’ve met many people over the years to guide me and have gained crucial knowledge and insight such as the importance of marketing and networking within the nightlife and entertainment scene that I am a part of.
With that, developing brand awareness is probably the most challenging aspect of starting your own brand. This is where hard work comes to play, as getting your brand out there to the market requires a good lot of effort. Working every waking hour of every day in developing your brand and its awareness goes a long way in building a strong and lengthy lifespan for your brand.
Hence, motivating yourself to create more content for your brand in terms of promotion and marketing overcomes this challenge greatly as it will further enhance your brand awareness. I constantly develop content and productions for Yusef Kifah as a brand, primarily for social media which helped to constantly grow my fanbase.
As the author Ray Davis once said, “A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.” We should always take challenges as potential to grow. The only way to start your brand is to deal with these obstacles with a determined mindset, contributing to the evolution of your brand and yourself as an individual.
Outspoken and talented, Yusef Kifah is an electronic music artist and student, growing his own brand. He is a student of Bachelor’s Degree in Mass Communication (Advertising).
